People of any age, gender, and race experience any of a number of types of pain at various times. Sometimes, this pain and/or other condition (e.g., diabetes, cancer) are chronic, occurring regularly. Other times this pain and/or other condition is temporary and occurs randomly. In the United States and a number of other countries, a common remedy for relieving pain and/or other condition, whether chronic or temporary, is medicine. Some medicine can be bought over-the-counter (without a prescription), but such medicine is generally not very strong and so cannot effectively treat more acute pain and/or other conditions that may require medication. Other medicine can only be bought legally with a doctor's prescription. While prescription medicine can effectively treat acute pain and/or other conditions that affect a person, many prescription drugs can have adverse side effects, such as causing addiction and/or damaging an organ.
Similarly, animals (e.g., cats, dogs, horses) sometimes require medicine to treat a condition, whether temporary or chronic. Further, some inanimate living objects (e.g., plants) can require fertilizer, food, anti-fungal treatment, or other similar treatments. Also, processes to create inanimate objects, such as metallurgy, can have additives to alter or improve the resulting product.